FINDING THE BODY.
'Fall in, the Mounted Infantry!' cried the voice of Hammersley, when
with earliest dawn strong parties were detailed from the camps of the
Second Division and Sir Evelyn Wood to scout the scene of the
tragedy; and as his squadron rode forth in the grey light with
rifle-butt resting on the thigh, just as the dawn began to redden the
summit of the Itelezi Hill, Florian remembered that this mournful
search was his first duty as an officer; but the calamity clouded the
joy of his promotion, and would be always associated with it.
He felt himself again the equal of Dulcie Carlyon; but, still, to
what end? He could not go home to her, nor could she come there to
him, a combatant in Zululand; besides, he knew well enough that an
officer's pay, unless when on service, is not sufficient for himself
without the encumbrance of a wife; and with this enforced practical
view of the situation he could only sigh as he rode on and thought of
poor Dulcie.
As some of the Volunteer Horse went to the front, Florian became
conscious that two, wearing huge, battered hats, who rode together,
were regarding him furtively, and with a curiously hostile and
scowling expression; and his heart gave a kind of leap when he
recognised in these, two of the ruffians whose odious features were
indelibly impressed upon his memory by the adventures of that
horrible night in the so-called hotel at Elandsbergen--Josh Jarrett
and Dick of the Droogveldt, with his short, thickset figure, small,
dull eyes, and heavy, bull-dog visage.
That they would work him some mischief, if possible, in their new
capacity he never doubted; and possibly enough it was their design to
do so, secretly and securely, amid the often confused scouting and
scampering to and fro of the Mounted Infantry among bush and cover of
every kind. But, as they were then going to the front, he thought it
unwise to move in the matter at the time; besides, they might be
knocked on the head, and all on the ground were thinking only of the
Prince Imperial.
A deep silence hovered over the ranks of the various searching
parties that rode round by the base of the flat-topped Itelezi Hill.
The swallow-tailed banneroles of the 17th Lancers, who looked
handsome and gay in their white helmets and blue tunics faced and
lapelled with white, fluttered out on the morning wind; but the iron
hoofs of their horses fell without a sound on the soft and elastic
turf of the green veldt. Occasionally a low murmur would be heard as
the searchers drew nearer the fatal kraal, and the lance was slung
and the carbine grasped instinctively when at times the black Kaffir
vultures, hinting of a dreadful repast, rose from among the tall,
feathery Tambookie grass, and, croaking angrily, winged their way
aloft as if enraged and interrupted.
Driving out roughly by lance point and rifle bullet about a hundred
Zulus from some holes and scrub, several of the Lancers under
Lieutenant Frith, their adjutant, and the Mounted Infantry under
Hammersley, next drew near the fatal donga, which some officers
crossed on foot. Among those who were in advance of all the rest was
Lieutenant Dundonald Cochrane, of the Cornish Light Infantry.
'Look!' cried Hammersley to Florian, as Cochrane was seen to pause
and with reverence take off his helmet. Then a hum went along the
ranks of the searchers, who all knew what he had found.
And there, on the sloping bank of the donga in the evening sunshine,
with his head pillowed on some sweet wild-flowers, nude as he came
into the world, save that a reliquary and locket with his father's
miniature were round his neck--supposed to be potent fetishes--lay
the poor young Prince, the guest of Britain, the hope of Imperial
France, and the only son of his mother, dead, and gashed by sixteen
assegai wounds, among them the usual cruel Zulu _coup de grace_--the
gash in the stomach.
It was found that, though an accomplished swordsman, he had failed to
use his sword--the sword of his father the Emperor--which had dropped
from the scabbard in his attempts to mount; but that, seizing an
assegai which had been hurled at him, he had defended himself till he
sank under repeated wounds; and a tuft of human hair clenched in his
left hand attested the valour and the desperation of his resistance.
His faithful little Scottish terrier was found dead by his side.
All around him the ground was trampled, torn, and stained by gouts of
blood.
A bier was now formed by crossed lances of the 17th Lancers, covered
by cut rushes and a cavalry cloak. Reverently and almost with
womanly tenderness did our soldiers raise the body, and on this bier,
so befitting to one of his name, Prince Napoleon was borne by loving
hands by the rough and rugged track that led towards the hill of
Itelezi; while all around the place where they had found him were
flowers of gold and crimson tint, where in the gouts and pools of
blood bright-winged moths and butterflies were battening.
That the Prince was duly prepared to meet any fate that might befall
him the remarkable prayer composed by him fully attests. It was
found in his repositories, and was published in the papers of the
time.
The entire Second Division was under arms to receive his remains when
brought into the camp beside the river. The body was borne through
the lines on a gun-carriage, wrapped in linen and shrouded by a Union
Jack; the funeral service was performed by the Catholic chaplain to
the forces, and Lord Chelmsford acted as chief mourner. Though
tolerably accustomed to bloodshed now, a profound impression of gloom
pervaded the faces of the troops.
By mule-cart the body was sent to Pietermaritzburg, and in passing
through Ladysmith there occurred a scene that was touching from its
simplicity. This is a small village in the Division of Riversdale or
Kannaland, where the body remained for the night at the entrance
thereof, in the bleak open veldt, under a guard of honour; but from
the school-house there came forth, and lined the roadway, a
procession of little black children, who, to the accompaniment of an
old cracked harmonium, sang a hymn, as the soldiers of the 58th
Regiment took the body away, and sweetly and softly the voices of the
little ones rose and fell on the chilly air of the morning.
'This,' says Captain Thomasson, of the Irregular Horse, in his
narrative, 'was but one mark of the feeling that all in the colony,
whatever their age, colour, position, or sex, had at the sudden and
terrible close of that bright young life. And it may safely be
affirmed that not one disassociated in his mind from the thought of
the dead son, the recollection of the blow awaiting the widowed
mother.'
The next striking scene was at Durban, the only port in Natal Colony,
where the troops handed over the remains to the blue-jackets of
H.M.S. _Shah_ for conveyance to England.
Here the poor old majordomo of the Prince was left behind. He was so
inconsolable for the loss of his master, that it was feared he would
lose his reason, and more than once he said, with simple truth and
bitterness:
'My master would not have abandoned one of them!'